Monday, March 29, 2010

Heart Creek on Clare's birthday.

So today was Clare's birthday, she's eleven now.. I can't believe how fast everything is going by. We went to Banff for dinner to celebrate and on the way we stopped at Heart Creek for a walk - which was Clare's choice. It was real windy while driving out but luckily Heart Creek is a pretty narrow valley nestled between some mountains and the wind didn't affect us while we were walking.

I've processed just one pic so far and here it is.

I'd found a tree stump that looked a lot like a baying wolf up on the side of the hill at the end of the trail. Initially I didn't have my tripod with me and I was having a hard time getting a sharp picture because it was a little bit darker where the stump was and the shutter speed that the camera wanted was pretty slow at 1/20th of a second. I really needed my tripod. So I climbed down the hill got my tripod and was heading back up when Jen said that they were going to start to head back cause they were getting a bit cold.

Ok I said, thinking I wouldn't be too long.. I climbed up took a pic of the tree-stump wolf, took a few other pics of some trees next to the cliff and climbed back down to where Jen and the kids use to be, thinking I'd start to head back.

There is a stand of trees at the end of the trail there and somehow I got all distracted with how the light and the shade was hitting the trees and the rocks and the mess of roots on the gound. I framed up a couple of shots where the light was pretty strong, then all of a sudden while I was looking through the viewfinder, the sunlight was being erased as a cloud whipped by and blocked out the sun. I took one shot during the transition while the cloud was getting into position.

I waited thinking the cloud would be gone soon.

The shade persisted.

I waited a bit longer, squinting at the sky looking to see how long the sun would be blocked and I could take another picture.. it looked like the cloud was pretty big so I decided I had to leave.

I started down the trail running for a bit then walking trying to catch my breath and running again. I figured that I'd be able to catch up to them. I only stopped twice to grab some more pics.. I had catch up to them cause I had the keys to the van.

I eventually caught up with them when they were only a few hundred meters from the parking lot. I didn't think that I had taken that much time but I guess I had no perception of how much time had past.. either that or they were just walking very quickly.